The Death Box

Thirty minutes later, feeling better than I had all day, I aimed the revamped Rover for Redi-flow. It was southwest of Miami, down toward Homestead. Once off the highway we wove through streets that turned from storefront businesses to small and brightly painted houses clustered on miniscule lots festooned with tropical foliage. The houses soon grew sparse, the land as much sand as dirt, errant terns pecking at prickly pears for insects. I smelled swampland nearby but never saw water.

Within minutes we banged past a lot holding smaller dozers and graders, cranes, trucks, and machinery of indecipherable usage, and a small abandoned building beneath a faded sign showing a crane and proclaiming OLYMPIA EQUIPMENT RENTAL – SINCE 1975.

Gershwin pointed. “Think they’d rent us a crane, sahib? You could shoot at lions from above.”

“The Rover is fine. And it’s Detective Ryder.”

We passed over rail tracks into a complex dominated by piles of gravel and sand, metal towers hovering in the air, one large silo emblazoned with a tall cross, below it the words REDI-FLOW CONCRETE, INC … A MIX FOR EVERY NEED. A half-dozen mixing trucks sat on the lot and two were pulled to one of the towers, workers standing beside them. In a far corner of the lot was a jumble of metal boxes and round tanks. I’d seen them at construction sites: portable mixing units conveyed on semis and set up where needed.

We pulled beside a squat building marked ‘Office’ as a helicopter blew by overhead, low enough to read the word EVERGLADES AIR TOURSon the fuselage.

Kazankis was in his early fifties, tall and square-built and in a blue uniform dusted with cement. He was ruggedly good looking, wavy silver hair pomaded and combed back from his high and sun-brown forehead. His voice was deep and resonant and had Kazankis stood with a Bible in his hand and started preaching about salvation it wouldn’t have been much of a shock.

I showed my new ID. “Why we’re here, Mr Kazankis, is we’re investigating a crime involving an amount of poured concrete that probably took a mixer.”

“You came to us because of who we hire?” he said quietly, meaning ex-cons. “I feel it’s my calling to help the fallen back to their feet.”

“I’m not questioning your calling, sir. I may wish to question some of your employees.”

“Our employees are no longer criminals. When first from prison, I employ them here. Some stay, others move to new careers. The record speaks for itself.”

“An exemplary record, indeed,” I said, credit due. “But you’ve had failures, Mr Kazankis. It goes with the territory.”